Let's just be honest about PBS

Arizona Daily Star ^ | July 4, 2005 | Jonah Goldberg

[rodguy911]

Nice try Jonah but they still don't deserve my tax dollars. Let em' get paid the old fashioned way, work for it in the capitalistic system.

[Servant of the 9]

but Gwen Ifill and Jim Lehrer try to play it fair

They're just not very good at it.

So9

[AD from SpringBay]

If it's so wonderful PBS ought to be able to survive in the market, without a nipple from mama guv'mint.

[highball]

Yes, they're lefty overall. But they do some good things as well.

Don't forget that PBS was the only network to pick up "Adventures from the Book of Virtues" after the free market rejected it.

[SandRat]

Today PBS stations constitute a rounding error..

all the more reason to kill the liberals propaganda sacred cow.

[AlbertWang]

[finnsheep]

A PBS spokesperson recently said that only 15% of their funding comes from taxes. Unless they are getting government money from some other type of funding, that is about half of what Democrats are saying would be necessary in the future to cut social security benefits to keep it solvent. So 15%? PBS should be able to get along without our tax dollars.

[Meldrim]

Jonah would've been much better off had he spent some times in the hallways/attending meetings of an infantry battalion.

[savedbygrace]

And in the face of a credible threat of having that funding pulled, contributions to local stations increase by 15 to 40%. So, nothing is lost, and they probably gain in many areas.

[The Great RJ]

The simple answer for continued funding of PBS is anyone actually watching? Certainly there is Neilson data about how many households are tuning in to PBS programming. Let's see the numbers and then decide if continued funding is worth the cost. My bet is that the snore fest programming that fills the PBS lineup is getting even fewer viewers than MSNBC.

[Wil H]

When PBS was created in 1967, it increased the number of television stations by 25 percent. Today PBS stations constitute a rounding error among the choices available to most consumers.

Yet we are pouring far more money into what is now an insignificant benefit....

Stop the waste, pull the funding.

[quantim]

It's the RINOs on this one. Can't blame the dems for what dems do. We should be able to simply not include this tax extortion for the purpose of leftist propaganda, but the fake republicans don't have the courage.

[Cicero]

Every once in a while Jonah comes out with a really stupid column, and this is one of them.

PBS is liberal from one end to the other. Hell, even Big Bird is a liberal and Car Talk is liberal.

When they do a typical news report, they have live quotes from three or four liberal senators, they report a snippet of the Republican response at second hand, carefully selected, and then three liberal commentators jump in and run with it.

I well remember all those breathless news stories about the wonderful Sandinistas freeing their country from oppression. I remember all those admiring stories about noble Fidel Castro. I remember all the hit pieces and hatchet jobs on Republican administrators.

There hasn't been a single positive story about President Bush in five years.

So, they have three or four token conservatives, but they keep them on tight leashes and drown them out whenever they venture into forbidden territory. This is not the way to "educate the poor and ignorant."

[theBuckwheat]

Here was my message to PBS and their reply. My comment about how the replied is to note it is focused on the issue of support (power) not on the substance of my comments about the point of view of one of their headline commentators.



Dear XXX,

Thank you for your comments and your honest analysis of your listening experience and of NPR. We appreciate hearing from all listeners, and I am grateful that you took the time to write.

I regret that you cannot count yourself among NPR's supporters, but we respect and value your perspectives. Listener feedback is essential to strengthening our efforts to provide the highest quality journalism to every listener.

Sincerely,

Lee Hill
NPR Audience Services

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Original Text

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Date : 6/18/2005 4:31:19 PM

NPR:

I heard Daniel Schorr lamenting the latest House action on cutting the PBS/CPB subsidy in next year's federal budget.

Is this the same Daniel Schorr I seem to recall lamenting the big Bush budget deficits?

Is this the same Daniel Schorr who warned NPR listeners that those big deficts were funded in part by the Chinese recycling US dollars by purchasing our government's debt?

It seems like Daniel Schorr and PBS are trying to have it both ways: to use budget deficits to bring us yet more bad news about the present administration, yet while seeking to preserve at least the PBS/CPB portion of that borrowing.

If PBS/CPB has such an urgently important message, I am confident that all those tax-advantaged foundations who presently support it so they can get their message out about social justice and world peace will be happy to pay NPR's share of the public debt. A lot of PBS supporters are advocates of debt relief for Africa and charity begins at home, you know. This is a priceless opportunity for everyone to practice what they preach.

Best of luck in your new fundraising activities! As a taxpayer and one who helps to pay the interest on the federal debt (some of which was borrowed to fund all the past years of PBS/CPB subsidies), I say goodbye!

Kindest regards,

XXXX

[Excuse_My_Bellicosity]

That said, conservatives who think the regular fare on PBS is crazy left-wing stuff overstate the case. Typical PBS programming involves breathless suburbanites dreaming that Grandpa's old footlocker might actually be the Ark of the Covenant on "Antiques Roadshow."

Uh huh, we're supposed to believe this from a humble insider. I remember their reporting of the 1994 elections where the DemoRats lost Congress, and the 2000 & 2004 elections. PBS was so pissed-off that they couldn't see straight. Tell me about fair-and-balanced, liberal pukes.

[RightWingAtheist]

[hometoroost]

Left, right, center - it doesn't matter. When there were only three commercial channels the government had no business being in the broadcast business. With as many cable channels as there are now it makes proportionally less sense then it did back then.

Get the government out of television, medical insurance, and retirement planning and this country will be much better off.

[WhiteGuy]

Thanks for telling us what we already know, Jonah.

Why the gop has refused for ten years to stop wasteful spending is the true issue.

[sandbar]

If the BILLIONS of dollars made by mass marketing of Elmo, Barney, Telletubbies, etc... were funnelled back into PBS there would be no need for taxes at all. So where DOES that money go? It could go for the educational series that don't have the access to toys, clothing and so on that the fiscally sound programs earn. If you come to America through PBS, you owe a little something back to PBS.